Games that impacted you the most [POSSIBLE SPOILERS]

**Hamachi** · 09-12-2011, 06:52 PM

That game basically taught me to copy my saves to another folder and copy them back when I died. Muahuahahaha!

Also, it taught me to eat corpses.

Fenn · 09-12-2011, 07:35 PM

Originally Posted by CypressDahlia

"Good" means it satisfies all the conventions of the genre, is well balanced, offers satisfying gameplay, tight controls, is graphically and audibly appealing and is fun. No matter how much people "like" it, whether or not a game meets these standards if entirely of the game. Even if nobody played a game if it met these standards it would be good. Not successful, but good. Likewise, even if people "liked" a game, if it's entirely unbalanced, slapdash in its genre placement, offers bad player feedback, has laggy controls, nearly inaudible/muddy audio and graphics that made playing the game a hassle due to vision limitations and such, it would be bad. I don't think anyone would LIKE a game like that, but just giving examples of how a game can suffer in each of those categories on a standardized level.

And if games were built around desirability, it would spell the end of gaming forever. Rarely do gamers desire anything outside of the realm of "what needs to be changed to improve my chances of winning? What will help me, as an individual or niche player, succeed and what is impeding my success?" In other words, CoD would degenerate into MW2's multiplayer. Which is why I brought up the example of Sirlin. He "desired" unbalanced gameplay when it was to his advantage but, when it came down to designing a --good-- game, he upheld the conventions of the genre and chose to balance it as well as possible. That is what I'm talking about: the distinction between success/accessibility/desirability, whatever you wanna call it, and just being GOOD.

All right, good. Now I ask another question: does this definition you have created serve the role of determining the objective value of a game? Because it seems subjective to me. That may be because it is true, or it may be because I am misinterpreting you.

I also want to clarify my use of desirability. I did not mean that a good game had qualities desired by gamers, although I can see how you would interpret it that way. I suggested that the final product, the game itself, was an object of desirability to many people. There is a subtle difference between the two.

**CypressDahlia** · 09-12-2011, 08:10 PM

Yes, they are objective standards. All except for 'fun', which accounts for enjoyability which IS part of game design, but definitely not the entire thing. Genre standards are very much objective. It's essentially a checklist: "does this game meet all of the precedents of the genre after which it was designed?" Balance is also extremely objective. Balance in fighting games is whittling down hitboxes, frames of animation and properties of attacks. Balance in, say, an FPS is adding or subtracting recoil from a gun, increasing/decreasing rates of fire and ammo capacities to ensure no one weapon is overpowered, or re-sculpting maps to make sure no one tactic is supreme. Player feedback is how the game rewards/punishes players based on their actions. This is basically how the game compels you to play more, play more aggressively, play more passively, etc, etc. Controls, audio and graphics don't have to work, sound or look a certain way, but none of them should interfere with the gamer playing the game in the way it was intended. If it does, then they are objectively bad. It would be like, say, playing DDR with muffled audio, playing Halo with extreme fog that made it impossible to see or playing Devil May Cry with lazy/delayed controls.

Fenn · 09-12-2011, 10:29 PM

Guess what? Clock just touched on the same topic, but related to music. I think tomorrow I'll make a thread addressing the concept of "good" and "bad" in media, and we can all have it out.

**CypressDahlia** · 09-13-2011, 12:27 PM

It's different from music, though, as when developers design a game they have a very clear intent on how it should play. If elements of the game impede the player from matching this ideal mode of play, those are bad elements. Whereas music does not need to sound like anything in particular, or be heard in any specific way. Also, unlike music, games have communal aspects and a far greater level of interactivity. Music does not need to give feedback to its players whereas a game consistently does.

Though there are objective standards for music, these standards do not necessarily need to be followed. Not following them does not make a song any less listenable. Whereas not meeting objective standards in games can make them unplayable.

**Regantor** · 09-15-2011, 09:59 PM

Eleven pages of "life impacting games" and nothing about Silent Hill 2?... SON, I AM DISSAPOINT D:<

Just calling it a horror is unfair; This game has such a strong story that it emotionally torments you. The graphics are absolutely perfect at giving off that "mundane as real life" feel, whilst at the same time you come up against super-originally-grotesque enemies that move anything but predictably. You suck at fighting, yeah, but that's okay; You do suck at fighting.

Haven't even got onto the voice acting and the intentionally hilarious hidden endings yet. Or Mr.Pyramid Head back before he sold out and became zombie chuck norris. Or the music. Or the weird hidden quotes. I'm hard pressed to come up anything on any media that is as immerse, endearing, terrifying.

Play it already. *^*

**jubeh** · 09-15-2011, 10:05 PM

**Regantor** · 09-15-2011, 10:51 PM

"This is tooo easy..."

Metal Gear is a weird one. I guess it all comes down to if you liked the giant ladder from MGS3 or not. Bullshit, yes, but original meta-gameplay bullshit. Where else can you embarrass your navigator by taking pictures of gay porn, or kill a boss by not playing the game for a few days?

I wonder how many people who complain about Kojima's navel gazing were just slugging through the Let's Plays...